Wild camping and photography - Bidean nam Bian

Outdoor adventure

15 Jul

Part of a Wild camping and photography series.

*My Hilleberg Akto tent pitched on perfect grassy ground near the summit of Bidean nam Bian, a Munro in the West Highlands of Scotland*

An obvious key attribute for an outdoor photographer is good health. A few years back, after many other solutions had failed, I’d opted for surgery to address increasingly uncomfortable nerve pain I’d been experiencing in my feet when walking or running. A skilled surgeon had recommended that he fracture and re-adjust three metatarsal bones in my right foot to give the nerves a little more space. After 16 weeks recovery, I felt my foot was strong enough to cope with an easy hill walk. Keen to take advantage of a great spell of weather in Scotland, I decided to break up my first trip back with a wild camp on the summit of Bidean nam Bian, a Munro above Glen Coe in the West Highlands of Scotland.

My recollection is, as I’d prepared my camping gear and camera equipment, I was looking forward to heading back to Glen Coe. I’ve visited the area many times before, which includes the village of Glencoe, and I’d decided to return for good reason - the landscape in such a small place is incredibly varied. Past trips include bivvying on the summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan, watching beautiful clouds that filled the glens at dawn, and a bivvy on top of Am Bodach on Aonach Eagach across the glen, where I was treated to a lovely sunrise that turned the hills purple and lit up my previous sleeping spot on Stob Coire nan Lochan. (You can see these latter images in my Glen Coe and Lochaber photo essay).

My plans for this return trip were to ascend from Glen Coe into the corrie above Loch Achtriochtan, beneath Dinnertime Buttress, and continue upwards towards the steep crags of Stob Coire nam Beith before breaking off west onto the bealach beside An t-Sron. I’d then spend time creating mountain landscape before continuing up the ridge to camp for the night on the summit of Bidean nam Bian (which, at 1107m high, is the highest peak in the old county of Argyll).

The internet is the obvious valuable resource for a mountain landscape photographer. With many useful tools such as Google Maps, Google Images and the Sunseeker app (or alternatives such as Photographer’s Empheris), you can plan out in detail exactly which locations should be worth going to and when, with the huge advantage of knowing in advance where the light will fall. You can research up-front in the comfort of your home or office and, on the day, it's hopefully simply a case of being blessed with good weather.

On this occasion, I had the summits of both Stob Coire nam Beith and Bidean nam Bian all to myself. For a short while, there was two people on the summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan, over a kilometre away (I think they’d scrambled up a route on Dinnertime Buttress), but when they'd gone it was just me and an uninterrupted 360-degree view I had of many of the beautiful glens, lochs and mountains that make up the Glen Coe and Lochaber region in Scotland, plus nearby Glen Etive and more. I'd read there was good ground for camping just to the west of Bidean's rocky summit and this proved correct - there's a lovely lawn-like area with minimal rocks in the ground that is an ideal place to pitch a tent. (You could also take a bivvy bag but I’d opted this time for the additional protection a tent provides due to my anticipation that I’d be blighted by that scourge of Scottish summer camping, the Scottish midge (which thankfully never materialised). I did though manage to lose a bag of semi-frozen grapes to a crow, which I'd been HUGELY looking forward to because it was very warm. There was almost a murder.

By midnight, I’d stopped taking photographs and was settled down in my sleeping bag, my alarm set for 3.00am (plus, as a precaution, 3.20am, 3.30am and 3.45am). Sunrise on this day was at 4.30am but it never really got dark and at 2.30am I popped my head out my tent to find it relatively light and with a lot of colour still in the sky. I decided I’d just get up and I was glad I did, as I spent a very special few hours in beautiful silence picking out landscapes on the horizon as the sun slowly came up, which allowed me to capture a range of mountain landscape images that I was really happy with and was Iooking forward to sharing with clients.

As for my foot? Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough. An innocuous slip on the way down caused me to put all my weight through it and it didn’t cope well at all. After a painful and lengthy descent (and a recommended x-ray from the hospital - which thankfully showed I hadn't re-broken it and it was likely tissue damage) I was back on the mend, although highly mindful of a friend’s advice, which is to be careful and to 'remember, you need your feet forever”.

Camera equipment